New Bob Dylan: “Duquesne Whistle”

The first single from Bob Dylan’s upcoming album Tempest, “Duquesne Whistle,” has surfaced at NPR Music. It’s a collaboration with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, who worked with Dylan on Together Through Life . The Love and Theft-style arrangement comes out swinging; the band jukes and jives like they’re performing on an old-timey train that only Dylan could engineer. As for geography, there are Duquesnes in Arizona, Missouri, and a university by that name in Pennsylvania. But Dylan has been hearing train whistles blow for a long, long time — some 50 years. What’s one more?

“You’re the only thing alive that keeps me going, you’re like a time bomb in my heart.”

Listen to “Duquesne Whistle” here. Tempest,his 35th is due September 11 from Columbia Records. “Duquesne Whistle” will hit radio today and will be available for purchase digitally tomorrow.